Anti-Recall Movement Picks Up Steam in Alameda County

An anti-recall movement is gaining steam in Alameda County, where District Attorney Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao face recall elections in November.

The recalls are two of four in Alameda County that qualified to go before voters this year. Residents recalled two Sunol Glen school board members in July.

The bubbling up of new energy countering the remaining recalls arrives after months of headlines dominated by recall supporters. As the county counts down the days to the election, anti-recall organizers say they plan to defend those who voted for Thao and Price in 2022. They want the candidates to serve full terms in office.

“I hold them to the same standard: high crimes and misdemeanors,” East Oakland Pastor Billy Dixon said at an anti-recall event on Saturday, referring to the standard for presidential impeachment. “Neither one committed high crimes and misdemeanors. So until that takes place, I don’t think a recall should take place.”

Last weekend, the campaign to keep Thao in office — Oaklanders Defending Democracy, Oppose the Recall of Mayor Thao — collected its first major donation: a $10,000 check from Quinn Delaney, a Piedmont progressive philanthropist and the founder and board president of Akonadi Foundation, a racial justice organization.

The renewed push against the recalls comes as the pro-recall campaigns appear to be running out of money.

The latest campaign finance filings show the two pro-recall campaigns are in debt. According to filings from April 1 through the end of June, the campaign to recall Price, Save Alameda For Everyone, is more than half a million dollars in debt. Most of the money is owed to PCI Consultants, a Calabasas-based signature-gathering company.

As of the end of June, the campaign to recall Thao, Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao, was $21,205 in debt, mostly to Philip Dreyfuss, the Piedmont hedge fund manager who has provided nearly 80% of the campaign’s funding.

Donations to SAFE during the most recent reporting period were less than $7,000, a notable decrease from the three previous disclosures — $20,000, $240,000 and $160,000, respectively.

An OUST press conference last week announcing that recall leader Brenda Harbin-Forte, a former Superior Court of Alameda County judge, was stepping away to focus on running for Oakland City Attorney, drew only a handful of attendees. A photo of the event, posted on X by The Oaklandside’s Darwin BondGraham, was mocked in the comments.

Meanwhile, at the launch event of a new anti-recall coalition on Saturday, hosted by Dixon at his church, Thy Word Ministries, had a crowd of around 100 people at its peak. Civil rights attorney Walter Riley and Pamela Drake, an Oakland political activist and Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club member, organized the event.

The coalition, Respect Our Vote — No Recalls, includes the Oakland-based Latino Task Force, Oakland Rising Action and Asian Americans for a Progressive Alameda, among other members. Speakers described the recalls as an attempt by billionaires to remove the county’s elected leaders.

“We want to expose that the vehicle of recalls — that is really a people’s device against entrenched power — has been co-opted by billionaires,” said Pastor BK Woodson Sr., a recall opponent, referring to major donations from Dreyfuss and tech investor Ron Conway.

Jess Inson, an Oakland Rising Action organizer, estimated the coalition needs to recruit 500 volunteers to knock on doors and talk with county voters. If the coalition can reach 10,000 voters, Inson said it can defeat the recalls.

Mariano Contreras of the Latino Task Force said the age and ethnic diversity of event attendees was a reflection of the years of progressive organizing that helped elect Thao and Price.

“This is why there’s a recall,” Contreras said. “This is why that dark money is uncomfortable with our elected officials.”

Instead of donating directly to the recall campaigns, Dreyfuss donated through two fundraising committees — Foundational Oakland Unites and Supporters of Recall Pamela Price. The latter was initially named Reviving the Bay Area but rebranded after a Price campaign attorney complained to election officials that the original name illegally obscured the purpose of the committee.

An investigation by the Oakland Public Ethics Commission into allegations that Foundational Oakland Unites was illegally coordinating its donations with OUST faced a setback last month when an Alameda County Superior Court Judge recused herself from a key hearing.

Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said she believes the recalls are part of a bigger political backlash to recent progressive electoral wins in the Bay Area. She said the movement found success with the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Conway and Dreyfuss donated to the 2022 recall.

Dreyfuss did not respond to requests for comment regarding his recall donations.

“We in the East Bay, which is a liberal bastion, is probably a nice target,” Quan said at the event. “If they can take down and divide our community, they don’t have to worry so much.”

Quan continued: “This is not just about the recalls. It’s about the control of the [Oakland] city council. It’s about the policies that we’ve led the nation in.”

She noted Oakland’s cease-fire program, which attempts to stop homicides before they happen by offering resources to young people most likely to commit homicides, and the decision by Oakland and Berkeley to give 16- and 17-year-olds a vote in school board elections.

Claims that the recalls are part of a billionaire-funded political plot have frustrated some Alameda County recall supporters who say they just want safety. They blame Thao and Price for the surge in violent crime in Oakland since the pandemic. But recently, the number of homicides, robberies and rapes in the city has declined, according to Oakland police.

In a fundraising email last week, OUST defended itself against the claim that billionaires are running the recall. “Newsflash: people with resources invest in political causes,” the email read. “When those causes align with the will of the people, it can be a beautiful thing.”